If you want to hear a really great, revealing and insightful tribute to Steve Jobs, tune into the Celebrating Steve video Apple posted earlier and go to the 48.30 mark.
Here Apple’s long-time head designer Jony Ive starts talking about his “best and most loyal friend.”
Ive’s tribute to Steve is by turns funny, touching and insightful. Unlike a lot of the negative stuff we’ve heard about Steve over the last few weeks, Jony describes Steve’s passion and enthusiasm, his sense of humor, and his great joy in doing things right.
I’d love to post the video here, but it’s streaming only for the moment. Here’s a snippet of what he said:
Now while hopefully the work appeared inevitable. Appeared simple, and easy, it really cost. It cost us all, didn’t it?
But you know what? It cost him most. He cared the most. He worried the most deeply.
He continues:
… He constantly questioned, ‘Is this good enough? Is this right?’
And despite all his successes, all his achievements, he never presumed, he never assumed, that we would get there in the end. And when the ideas didn’t come, and when the prototypes failed, it was with great intent, with faith, he decided to believe we would eventually make something great.
But the joy of getting there. I loved his enthusiasm. His simple delight. Often, I think, mixed with some simple relief. Yeah, we got there, we got there in the end and it was good. You can see his smile can’t you? The celebration of making something great for everybody.
Enjoying the defeat of cynicism. The rejection of reason. The rejection of being told 100 times, ‘You can’t do that.’
So his I think, was a victory for beauty, for purity. And as he would say, ‘For giving a damn.’
He was my closest and my most loyal friend.
We worked together for nearly 15 years — and he still laughed at the way I said ‘aluminium.’
For the past 2 weeks, I think we’ve all been struggling to find ways to say goodbye.
This morning, I simply want to end by saying ‘thank you Steve.’
Thank you for your remarkable vision which has united and inspired this remarkable group of people.
Tor all that we have learned from you and for all that we will continue to learn from each other, ‘thank you Steve.’
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
